Last leg here... we have a pair of intake manifolds going in the CNC on saturday and then its surge can production time.
BTW, our prototype tester told me yesterday he has 400 miles on it now on this track only car between dyno and track testing. Sometime in the last week or two he had it on thunderbolt or thunderhill or something along those lines near NJ and he said he was able to run the car to at 1/4 tank (or maybe he said just below, cant recall) without a single hiccup yet. So he hasnt found a limit of our prototype so far. This track apparently is a mostly right hand track? You guys would know better than me. Either how, he said he used to have a lot of problems on this one. But there is another track that was the biggest problem for the car that he is going to be testing on soon and that should be the final results.
The part I was really happy to hear about was that he was satisfied enough with the results so far, that instead of moving to a fuel cell as he originally had planned, he has ordered another OEM gas tank from Nissan to weld on the dry break fill neck stuff and move the existing rig all over to it and put it in the car.
As for complaining about Nissan not fixing this.... This is car has the worst fuel starvation I have seen. Its it not acceptable at all. I have been around tons of sports cars working in this industry for a long time... its always been common sense to be careful at low tank levels but the 370z is horrendous... I am not exageratting when I say I can EASILY get my 370z, with only 1 LED of the gas gauge not lit, to completely starve coming out of a right hander. It wasnt so bad when my car was more stock, it used to have to be half tank or below... but at mid 500s to the wheels on 305 R compound tires, using E85 (increases fuel needs roughly 30%)... this is rediculous.
MOST cars will need a surge can setup at SOME point. I have never seen a car that needs one STOCK.
Where nissan went wrong, is not entirely clear to me. This cars fuel system is nearly identical to the 350z in its theory... just some things have been shaped and squished around a little... but the entire theory on how it operates is the same and the 350z did not have the problem NEARLY as bad. My 350z was setup more than my 370z and could turn harder, and made more power, and only once in 7+ years of having that car fully mod'd and twin turbo, did I ever get right hand fuel starvation.
There are easy changes that could be made to the gas tank itself, that would cost nissan very little, that would resolve this issue. But making changes to the gas tank in the aftermarket in just not the same... it needs to be done before the gas tank is welded together at the factory and filled with gasoline. Once that is all done, forget adding anything significant to the inside structure of the tank... and getting the tank inside and out of these cars is no fun task either.
Last edited by phunk; 04-05-2012 at 01:40 PM.
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